What Were We Thinking?: The Torrington Board of Education and open government

A reporter for The Register Citizen objected recently when the Torrington Board of Education went into "nonpublic" session to discuss the "conduct of" one of its members.

We believe use of Connecticut's Freedom of Information Act, which requires government boards and commissions to conduct their business publicly with only a few strictly regulated exceptions, and also assures the public's ability to access government documents, is a key tool of local journalism. And we see it as part of our mission to make sure that the law is being adhered to by local officials. We admire the great work that our competitor, the Waterbury Republican-American, has done on this front, and we recently established a full-time investigations editor position whose main focus will be on FOIA.

The press was told in this recent case that discussion of conduct of a school board member falls under the exception of "personnel" discussions. The problem in this case, as we've since learned, is the "conduct" they were discussing was Board of Education member Vincent Merola simply exercising what the average voter would want and expect out of an independently elected public official. His crime? Writing letters to the editor of The Register Citizen discussing innocuous, positive developments in the school district. Board of Education Chairman Ken Traub wants to enforce a policy in which the board has "one voice" and members are prohibited from talking about deliberations. Deliberations, by the way, that are by law supposed to be public, unless they fall under that narrow list of exceptions, which nothing that Merola wrote about, did.

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Not only is this a comically awful policy for an elected board to try to enforce, it's illegal, unconstitutional and a huge disservice to Torrington. The fact they discussed it in secret shows the depth of their disconnect.

Matt DeRienzo is group editor of Journal Register Co.'s newspapers in Connecticcut, including The Register Citizen. Email him at mderienzo@journalregister.com.

Your Take

1: What do they fear?: Reader comment from RegisterCitizen.Com: "As long as what is being written about contains only information that was discussed in the public part of the BOE meetings, what's the problem? ... Are they afraid that the taxpayers to whom they are responsible are actually going to start paying attention to what they are doing and will begin questioning them? Isn't this the whole point of open meetings - to allow the people who foot the bill to know how their representatives are spending that money? ... if there are statements with which other members of the board disagree, they are free to write letters as well. But putting out a gag order on a "public servant" smacks of cover-up, whether it is or not."

2 - First Amendment: "When did a person's First Amendment right to free speech evaporate upon election or appointment to a board or commission? Is Mr. Merola writing lies? Is he writing about the content of executive sessions? Apparently he is sharing information that is part of the public record. But even if he was just sharing his opinions, it's his right." "That is absolutely outrageous. The man is an elected official accountable to the people who put him into office. He does not report to the board chair or the superintendent. If the voters don't like his letters, then they can boot him out of office when and if he runs for re-election."

3 - 'We Want One Voice': From Torrington Board of Education Chairman Ken Traub: "When people read something in the newspaper or on the web, it's fact to them. It could get confused between what's being worked on in a subcommittee and what is actually being moved on the board. ... We want to be one voice. It's hard to be one voice when someone is writing something from their perspective, when it's still in the works. ... There was no attempt to squash his enthusiasm or energy in the community. The information that's disseminated to the public needs to be right, and it needs to be facts."